Features

Happy snap your way to inner calm

The idea your mobile phone could help you find inner peace and stillness might seem laughable. But the camera in your phone can be a perfect tool to do just that, one mental health advocate insists.

[Image source: Source: Matthew Johnstone]

For many of us, the mobile phone is the ultimate form of distraction. We spend hours a day tweeting, texting, talking or just faffing about in ways that mean we don't give anything our full attention.

But your phone could also provide a way to cut through the busyness and chaos in your life, says author, illustrator and mental health advocate Matthew Johnstone.

The cameras built into most mobile phones mean the practice of photography is now accessible to most of us "on the go", and it's a great way to still a busy mind, says Johnstone, who worked for many years in the advertising industry and had a long struggle with depression.

In 2012, Johnstone created "I had a black dog", a whimsical five-minute video about depression, for the World Health Organisation. He has also written and illustrated books about depression, meditation and the practice of mindfulness, which he describes as "being more aware of what you're doing and [being] more present".

Johnstone now works as creative director at the mental health organisation Black Dog Institute and says mindfulness played a key part in his recovery from depression. (For more about the growing body of evidence that mindfulness can be helpful in managing mental illnesses, see Meditation: the healing force of a quiet mind.)

"Eyes-wide-open meditation

While many people practice mindfulness as a meditation  where you turn your mind and attention inward and focus on a single thought, image, object or feeling  taking photographs can be a great "mindful" activity for those turned off by the idea of meditation or those who find it very difficult, he says.

For them, or indeed anyone, a mobile phone camera is the perfect tool for an "eyes-wide-open" meditation on the go. And the beauty of using your phone camera is you probably have it with you all the time. (Just make sure you switch it to aeroplane mode first so you're not distracted by texts, tweets and the like, he says.)

"The supercomputer that is our minds is constantly yanking us in different directions. It's stuck on autopilot, fast forwarding us to the future, reminding us to the past," he said in a presentation at the Happiness and its Causes conference in Sydney recently.

"A camera in your hands is the reminder to consciously slow everything down from your breath, to your walk, to your thoughts... To take photographs, we have to stop, look around, focus and capture. It brings our awareness to what's going on [here and now]."

When we do this, we start to realise we're often surrounded by "beautiful light, beautiful shapes, beautiful colours. But all too often, we just pass them by".

"If the camera could talk, it would ask 'what can you see that no-one else can? What grabs your heart? What makes you smile?'"

You don't need to be an expert in the art of photography and you don't need a fancy camera, he insists. Many of the photos in his latest book on achieving mindfulness through photography were taken on his phone.

"I've given my book to quite a few photographers who said 'I always knew I liked photography but I never really understood why I enjoy it so much'. I think the reason is because [when you're taking photos] you really slow down and look around. It's a lot of what we, the general population don't do.

"It doesn't matter what the photograph is, the important thing is the process."

The informal practice of mindfulness

There are many other ways you can be mindful in daily life apart from photography. Indeed any activity done mindfully, is a form of mindfulness says expert Dr Craig Hassed, a GP, author and Monash University lecturer.

The key ingredient of being mindful is that "we are conscious of what is going on but not in a self-conscious kind of way  so paying attention rather than thinking about ourselves," Hassed says.

If you try to practise mindfulness informally and find your attention drifts off  or even if you start to ask yourself "Is this mindfulness? Am I paying attention? What should I be experiencing?"  he has this advice (which is the same advice he would offer if this occurred while you were practising mindfulness more formally in meditation):

"Just to notice in a non-judgmental kind of way and gently bring the attention back to the here and now by getting in touch with your senses. No more thought is required."